Let me start out by making it clear that when I started out on today.com I signed an agreement that stated that I would retain my copyright. I worked my tail off trying to write, build and promote that blog along with my others while writing for three other sites.

I went through many many different themes and variations of the universal theme that I created myself. I was told to take things off of my blog(EC, Adgitize and a few other choice goodies) and promote their products. The dollar amounts in my account never matched the traffic that I received and I never reached payout. I am currently about $5 short of payout. When today.com let me know that they were going to take away my ppp, I had already decided to take my blog in another direction. I had owned the poeticexpression.net domain for months but had never got around to finishing the template for my blog.

My idea was to take my today.com blog and turn it into a creative writing resource for writers and to showcase my poetry and prose on my own blog. On my own blog I could promote it the way that I wanted to and post it in the order that I chose.

The day that I wrote the post "Just What is Going on Here", I had every intention of continuing my blog, although I had my doubts about where things were going with the today.com site. Then the axe fell on the very same day. If I hadn't noticed that I could put EC back on that blog, I'd have left then and there.

I continued to write a few posts about the changes in poetry.com and poets.com and also a few things on creative writing that were still in draft. Because I had EC back, it was worth continuing to write there for my followers.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that I had nearly 2000 hits for the month, but less than 1.00 for the month. I was not happy. Then a couple of days ago I added a blogupp widget to my blog and was promptly emailed to remove any affiliate links or traffic exchange widgets from my blog and given a list of banned widgets(blogupp is NOT on this list).

I decided that enough is enough and went to the site, removed everything but my blogroll and links to everything outside of the today.com network. I deleted all of my graphics that were uploaded, defaulted the color scheme and removed all work past the 4/17 date when they stopped closing posts for ppp. I also changed my blog name to "I'm Done Here" and my tag line to "My Readers Know Where to Find Me". The only thing I was unable to take were my closed posts. A great number of those posts were not ppp anyway because they were previously published works. I feel that they have absolutely not right to keep my work on their domain.

I emailed today.com and let them know that I am very unhappy and that it's a waste of my time to write for their site when I can make more having my own blog and use my work the way that I choose. I also let them know that I believe that what they are doing is destroying their network.

I asked for immediate removal of my work, considering that they have never paid me a dime and that the agreement that I agreed to stated that I would retain my copyright. They changed my blog name to "Poetic Expression" and the tagline to "A Poetry Blog".

I am angry about the whole ordeal and will probably never see a dime for all of my hard work, but I figure that they will get theirs in the end. The network is crumbling around them. Are they so oblivious that they can't see it?

—M

I just went from three blogs with a PR2 and one with PR0, to one blog with a PR2 and three with PR0. Ack! T.T

I am sorry you had to go through all of that crap with them. I did as well and I am so happy now that I have the freedom to do as I please on my own blog. As far as their owning the content, I have many questions about that which I will be presenting to a friend of mine who is also a lawyer. In any case, don't look back and only move forward. This is a new opportunity for you and a much better one.